Bahrain/Saudi/Iranian Conflict Explodes Into Violence. Sorry.. WILL Explode Into Violence, Shortly..

Iran calls deployment of Gulf troops in Bahrain 'meddling'

 Iran on Tuesday criticized the deployment of soldiers from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states into Bahrain, the first cross-border intervention since a wave of popular uprisings swept through parts of the Arab world.


"The presence of foreign troops and meddling into Bahrain's internal affairs will only further complicate the issue," Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said in Tehran. Saudi troops were not visible in main areas of the capital Tuesday.


The protests have fueled fears that unrest may spread to Saudi Arabia. Many Shiite Bahrainis retain cultural and family ties with Iran and Shiites in eastern Saudi Arabia; Bahrain's ruling family has close links with Saudi Arabia, which holds 20 percent of the world's oil reserves.
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"The Saudis are adding fire to the situation," said one of the protesters, Hussein Ali, a 40-year-old mechanical engineer. "We consider the Gulf force to be an invader."
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Saudi Arabian troops moved into Bahrain as part of a regional force from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The United Arab Emirates sent some 500 soldiers, U.A.E. Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed al Nahyan said.
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More than 100 military vehicles have crossed into Bahrain, Al-Jazeera television reported.  (The next article calls those "military vehicles" tanks.)

Bahrain Protest: Saudi Arabia, Iran Complicate Unrest

The increasingly bloody confrontation between the mostly Shi'ite protesters and their Sunni King, Hamad ibn Isa Al Khalifa, led the monarch to ask for backup on March 13 from the Joint Peninsula Shield, the military coalition established to protect members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) from invasion. On March 14, more than 100 Saudi tanks rolled across the causeway that links Saudi Arabia and Bahrain in an effort to quell the uprising and save Bahrain's royal regime. Saudi Arabia's arrival marks the first time an outside country has intervened in a protest since the wave of unrest began in the Arab world in January. (See TIME's exclusive pictures of the crackdown in Bahrain.) (Check out the link..  After looking at these images, two things became more clear:  The income disparity is pretty large between haves and have nots(Compare the nice cars and nice clothes to the no cars and not nice clothes), and.. The Shiites aren't submitting.  They won't back down:  Not now..)
Saudi Arabia's unexpected military action could further anger not only the protesters in Manama but also leaders in Iran, perhaps leading the island nation to become the scene of a proxy war. Iran has long had an interest in dominating the Persian Gulf. Stratfor's John Friedman wrote in a position paper on March 14 that the larger uprising's spread to Bahrain represented a "golden opportunity" for Tehran. "The Iranians are accustomed to being able to use their covert capabilities to shape the political realities in countries," he wrote, something they did effectively in Iraq. "The Saudis, recognizing that this posed a fundamental risk to their regime and consulting with the Americans, have led a coalition force into Bahrain ... pressed by covert forces, they were forced into an overt action they were clearly reluctant to take." (See "Why a Saudi Intervention in Bahrain Won't End the Protests.")

The Bahrain/Saudi/Iranian crisis is some mutant, militarized Romeo and Juliet, where both Iran and Saudi Arabia are Romeo, Juliet is the Bahraini Ethnic Shiites(With Iran) and Sunnis(With Saudi Arabia), and America is Juliet's father: Traditionally Powerful and Present(Via the 5th Fleet), but ultimately, unable to influence the crisis to a peaceful outcome, and suffering a devastating loss...



Or not; just a thought..